When archaeological Hong Kong filmed the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the most irresistible thing was the retro and nostalgic soul – Cantonese. “Have you eaten yet?” “Are you hungry? I’ll cook a bowl of noodles for you to eat!” After reminiscing about the classic lines of Hong Kong dramas, many of them are related to eating. When thinking of Cantonese, the first thing that comes to mind is An assortment of delicacies.
Although Cantonese is the most widely used local dialect, and Cantonese cuisine is well-known far and near, but in Guangdong, a food-rich province, friends who speak Chaoshan and Hakka have also contributed a lot of mouth-watering delicacies! Today is World Cantonese Day, LP will take you from the Cantonese area of Guangdong to search for the delicious taste of “Laoguang” and pass the addiction on the tip of your tongue! Let’s eat~
Cantonese cuisine, known for its light colors, is unique among many Chinese cuisines. Guangdong has been a gathering place of Baiyue since ancient times. It is located in Lingnan, facing the sea and mountains. It has been isolated from the Central Plains for a long time. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, a large number of people from the Central Plains went south and introduced the influence of the Han people. Later, the Nanyang Guofan who worked hard abroad returned to his hometown and brought back foreign goods. The famous sand tea sauce in Chaoshan area is actually the Nanyang satay sauce. Fusion (Fusion Cuisine) was once popular in the kitchen industry, which is the way to mix and match various cultural cooking foods to create new tastes. Guangdong, which embraces all rivers, has always been good at this method, so it can always introduce a variety of delicacies, from Yangzhou fried rice, Xingzhou fried rice, to the recently popular charcoal-grilled oysters, which are said to be new dishes invented by Guangdong masters.
01 Start with seasoning
Outside Guangdong, people’s inherent impression of Cantonese cuisine is often light, and there are naturally many dishes in Cantonese cuisine that highlight the original flavor of the ingredients. But this inherent impression may also explain from the side that the Cantonese people have great seasoning skills. Those cooks who have been diligently studying in the kitchen and passing it on from generation to generation, through various seasonings to add the finishing touch to the food, make you even Undetected.
Head Sauce and Soy Sauce
“Pumping” is a unique name for soy sauce in the Lingnan area. It comes from the ancient wisdom of Cantonese brewing craftsmanship hundreds of years ago. After the soy sauce is fermented and matured in a large sauce tank, the bean dregs are separated by a tool made of wood and bamboo. The finished product is extracted from the soy sauce spoon. Over time, this action has evolved into a noun, and according to the different craftsmanship, quality or function, the classification of light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and premium soy sauce is derived.
Fermentation is definitely the most important part of determining quality. Ordinary soy sauce is fermented with soybeans, wheat flour and other materials after cooking, making koji, and adding salt water. After the first fermentation, koji is made with beans, wheat flour, etc. After secondary fermentation and more sufficient sunlight, the amino acid content that is directly related to umami will be higher, which can make the flavor of the top soy sauce stronger and the aftertaste longer.
Sand Tea Sauce
In Chaoshan flavor, sand tea sauce is one of the most common sauces for daily meals. For many Chaoshan people, the origin and introduction of sand tea sauce are not very important, because sand tea sauce has already been localized in the daily seasoning of Chaoshan. You will know when you eat it in dry noodles.
In contemporary times, the association between Chaoshan beef hot pot and sand tea sauce has not been interrupted. Even though it is influenced by the Northern and Sichuan hot pot dipping sauces, for the locals, the sand tea sauce is the most authentic and delicious choice. The taste of the sand tea sauce is mild and not irritating, and it is a wonderful match for dipping in tender beef.
tangerine peel
To the Cantonese, tangerine peel is to the people of Hunan what chili peppers are to the people of Sichuan, and Chinese prickly ash is to the people of Sichuan. The mild-tempered dried tangerine peel has a sweet, pungent, mellow taste, and also has the special aroma of Rutaceae plants. When matched with the ingredients, it brings out the fresh fragrance and removes the fishy smell. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that it is the soul of Cantonese cuisine.
In Xinhui, Guangdong, the hometown of dried tangerine peel, it is the most basic seasoning. Every autumn and winter, there will be large-scale drying of tangerine peels around the famous tangerine peel producing areas. If you happened to visit the former residence of Liang Qichao at that time, the wall paintings and the overwhelming tangerine peels along the way will definitely bring unexpected joy to the journey. The air is filled with fragrance, and the camera is full of orange stories.
Ginger
You often get a special fragrance in Cantonese cuisine, which is not like the common spices like star anise, cinnamon, and bay leaves in normal times, so it is probably due to the sand ginger.
In Zhanjiang, in western Guangdong, a small plate of sand ginger dip is seen as the ultimate accompaniment to white-cut chicken. The bean fragrance of soy sauce, the fragrance of peanut oil and the unique fragrance of sand ginger are blended, unlocking the tenderness and original chicken flavor of the white-cut chicken. After one bite, the fragrant teeth and cheeks linger, which immediately makes people look forward to the next bite. In addition to white-cut chicken, locals also use sand ginger to stir-fry chicken and make chicken soup, so that the fragrance of sand ginger penetrates more thoroughly, and the combination of sand ginger and chicken is completely carried out.
02 Delicate ingredients
Aquaculture
Cantonese people are good at cooking fish and fresh food. Although the freshness in Cantonese cuisine is not limited to seafood, the gift of the great river and ocean is indeed the most unforgettable taste bud memory in Cantonese cuisine.
rattle snail
From the perspective of modern people’s health, snail meat is a kind of pure protein with almost no fat. The taste is light and delicious, and the aftertaste is sweet and refreshing. This trait has been more respected in recent years, and in addition to being rare, the increasingly scarce snails have a tendency to throw off other ingredients on the list of Chaozhou cuisine treasures.
roasted oysters
Charcoal grilled oysters are the first choice for people in Zhanjiang (and all Cantonese) to eat oysters. Bake the washed oysters directly on the charcoal fire. The oyster shell is a natural container. When heated and mature, the oyster shell opens slightly, and the juice inside will not overflow with the heat. This is the essence.
fish rice
The cold food restaurants on the streets of Shantou are like aquariums that you can eat: the bright stalls are filled with different types of fish, in different shapes and colors, and several fish of the same type are stacked in bamboo baskets. It is intact, but the skin of the fish is broken as soon as the chopsticks touch it, and the salty, fresh, sweet and tender fish is gushing out from the body of the fish. When you hear the owner explain that it’s “fish rice”, don’t bother looking for rice in the basket, because fish rice is pure fish.
Poultry
In the Hong Kong films in my memory, the siuwei stall that emits a warm light is definitely a classic picture. The Cantonese people who adapt to local conditions have integrated and developed cooking methods, and have prepared a decent “behind the scenes” for each poultry.
Braised Goose
Chaoshan people like to eat braised goose, and the goose species must choose Chenghai lion-headed goose. This kind of goose is huge in size, and a number of “meat buns” will grow on the head of the gander, which is shaped like the hair curls on the top of the head of a stone lion, hence the name “lion-headed goose”.
The old brine can dye the skin of the goose with a honey-like dark brown, allowing the flavor of the secret recipe to slowly penetrate every inch of the texture of the goose meat. Nowadays, more and more people use stainless steel pots to make stewed goose. The taste of the stewed goose is softer. Because the temperature is not high enough, the moisture of the goose meat is not easy to drain. More chewy.
white cut chicken
Even if there are challenges from strong competitors such as soy sauce chicken, salt-baked chicken, and sesame oil chicken at the dinner table for Chinese New Year, festivals and weddings It must be: white cut chicken.
In the land of Nanyue, which believes in “above the original flavor”, for a white cut chicken, “chicken flavor” is the highest evaluation. The secret to top-quality poached chicken comes from that pot of white brine. In the earliest days, Cantonese chefs did not use brine to soak the white-cut chicken, nor did they “go over the cold river”, and they were done with hot water. With the increasing pursuit of taste by gourmets, cooks began to cook with chicken soup and white brine to comfort their soulmates.
squab
The status of squab in Cantonese cuisine is by no means inferior to that of white cut chicken. A pigeon is served on the table, the wings and thighs are cut into 4 pieces, and several people share the food. It seems to have become the basic operation of enjoying the pigeon in many places.
A local’s guide to tasting pigeons
1. Whether it is brine pigeon or raw fried young pigeon, it is most wonderful to eat it whole without cutting it.
2. If it is a brine pigeon, first open it along the thigh root of the pigeon. At this time, you will see the hot juice flowing under the skin, so hurry up and inhale the precious juice into the mouth first. Then break off the thigh, where the meat is the most tender, and eat the wings. The brisket is a bit thick and can be eaten with a marinade.
3. The raw-fried young pigeon is beautiful because of its skin and less meat, but after marinating and savory, even the bones are full of fragrance and can be chewed.
03 Pickled dry goods, the essence in the concentrate
pickled
Raw marinade, the cooking method in which raw food is marinated in a sauce, also refers to all foods prepared in this way – usually small crustacean seafood. Small snails left in the bottom of fishermen’s nets, fiddler crabs dug up by women from the beach, and freshwater prawns caught by children in the rice fields of streams, as long as they are fresh and simple to cook, they can all be made into delicious and delicious meals. of raw pickled.
sausage
The so-called “sweet in the south, salty in the north, salty in the east, sour in the west, spicy in the west”, Sichuan-style sausages are spicy and salty, while Cantonese-style sausages are intertwined with salty and sweet, and the wine aroma is strong, which is clearly a taste that Lingnan people are obsessed with.
With the autumn wind in October, the chefs will go to the market to select fresh pork, and the expert only picks the hind leg meat, especially the kind that feels a little sticky. After buying the meat, cut it into pieces, put it into a large basin according to the proportion of fat and lean, add salt, sugar, soy sauce and liquor, and in some places, follow the ancient method and add a small amount of dried tangerine peel.
salted fish
The sea fish is marinated overnight in Cheng and then dried. After simple cooking, it tastes more tender and tender. This marinating method is called “one night Cheng”. In scientific terms, it is lightly sun-dried salted fish.
In the past, fishermen used only coarse salt for simple pickling, but now they are improved and seasoned with salt water. The ratio of salt and water is very particular. When the ratio of the two is 1:1, the marinating time is completely different from that when the ratio is 1:1.5. In order to prevent it from being too salty or too bland, this ratio must be strictly controlled. At the same time, no wine can be put in it, otherwise the fish will taste sour.
04 Be more refined: take care of the heat
The so-called heat is the mastery of firepower and time. This kind of experience is difficult to learn through books or words. Only those who have been immersed in cooking all the year round can use the five senses to find the most suitable “God” for serving overseas a moment.”
beef hot pot
UI. The same goes for Chaoshan beef hot pot. The rapid transmission of beef from the slaughterhouse to the dining table, supplemented by the sharp knife work of the kitchen chef and the dexterous control of the chopsticks by the diners, together constitute the secret of delicious beef hot pot.
The beef that has been slaughtered and cut can not be cooked for a long time, as it will lose its tender, fresh and sweet original flavor. The five-flowered toe is mainly lean meat. It is chewy and tender when it is boiled for 15 seconds, and it will become hard if it is boiled for more time; “朥” in Chaoshan dialect refers to animal fat, and the seemingly greasy chest is actually It is the fascia that is more resistant to cooking. Cooking for 5 minutes can achieve a mellow, crispy and tough taste.
kebab pot
Heat, a word that is always mentioned in Chinese cooking, is embodied to the extreme by jiu jiu pot. The pre-seasoned fresh food is put into the scalding clay pot. Under the fierce fire like a storm, the food is cooked at high speed until it is nine mature. The chef “copy” the clay pot, run to serve, and uncover , stirring… A series of actions are completed in one go, and it takes only 3 minutes before and after.
In the world of Kei Kei pot, the process of raw and cooked ingredients in a short period of time in pot is the climax, and the hot “wok gas” is the essence, so raw Kei is recognized as “the king of Kei Kei pot”.
soup
What is the “right” soup, the people of Lingnan have their own set of judgment standards that follow the seasons: what kind of soup to drink in any season. To detoxify and remove dampness in spring, gold and silver vegetables, pig lung soup and dace soup are indispensable. In summer, fresh melons and fruits are on the market, and it is time for winter melon and old duck soup and octopus joint melon soup. In autumn, there are beef bone soup and water fish. Soup, Beiqi Codonopsis Chicken Soup; in winter, deer tail stew soup and ginseng black chicken soup are the best choices.
traditional home-cooked
It is said that in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, there were many sugar water shops on the streets of Guangzhou, and the standard at that time was “two sand and three paste” – red bean paste, mung bean paste, sesame paste, almond paste and walnut paste. These are still available in today’s stores, and you can check whether the sugar water is qualified by simply ordering it.
There are also some simple desserts, which are more like mother’s skillful daily routine. Red (bean paste), green (bean paste), black (sesame), white (sago), orange (sweet potato), yellow (egg), the distinct colors can help you remember, and the bright taste may be unforgettable.
custard makes good taste
Eggs and fresh milk are a major theme of Cantonese sugar water, and they must have a place in the dense menu of dessert shops.
Nest egg custard is the most common. Beat an egg in boiled milk, boil it for a while and add sugar according to the preference of rawness. This is a favorite for soft-hearted egg lovers. The advanced version is a stewed egg with fresh milk. The filtered egg liquid is evenly dispersed and blended with fresh milk. Add sugar and steam it in a pot. It is a bowl of smooth and delicate deliciousness. Happiness.
A bowl of herbal tea solves Prozac
As long as the Cantonese people feel a little unwell, they will first think of drinking herbal tea. Once the newcomers are not acclimatized to the soil and water, they will be immediately “Amway” a cup of herbal tea. The owner of the herbal tea shop seems to “keep a hundred and ten kinds of herbal tea often, and he can also heal if he can’t cure a disease.” Folks believe that the more bitter the herbal tea, the more effective it is, but now it has become a trend to put sugar in the same pot.
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